Fair Play

I have been absent for a while dealing with the holidays and other work related business. As I can finally take a breath, I find myself moved to write. I felt like a zombie there for a while, simply going through the motions and obligations that the holidays bestow upon us. My creativity was stifled under all the responsibility, but I had time to think about things that I wanted to write about.

I attended a bridal shower yesterday for a close friend of mine. On her invitation it read, “…is registered at Lowe’s, Home Depot and Target.” I stared down at the invitation in my hands and thought to myself, “Dear God…How long can you expect a marriage to last if your bridal shower invitation resembles that of a housewarming party?” I refused to get her a gift of anything she…

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5 Replies to “Fair Play”

I am going to say, after reading the article, despite her anger and experience, her ability to write, she has left out the one most important factor, as most do, that has been the end to most any sexual revolution or liberation in history. Disease.
I was told this by a very cynical doctor I worked with at Kaiser Medical who had spent his stint in WW 2 as a doctor in Paris.
I am sure this woman would be swinging a different hammer were she writing this from a doctor’s waiting room.

Bringing home a disease to an unsuspecting spouse is something you hear about at a medical clinic. What a way to find out, and what greater reason to consider the consequences of one’s desire to wander. I have never seen it addressed as sort of the other side of that coin.
I think it is the foundation of the concept of monogamy in the long run and most people don’t realize it on a conscious level.
They tend to look away from it or deny the risk is even there.
I can say with almost 100% accuracy that the way a woman comes into your life is the way she shall leave it, so that bit of fling could leave you with a sting….. just saying.

Agree, Jim, and was going to comment likewise about disease, which is, ironically, the stalwart defense for monogamy, if only for societal health. But like love and sex generally, it all comes down to responsibility.

A very interesting and thought provoking post. It is clear (seems so anyway) that the author has first hand experience of what she writes about. It also appears clear that it is a credo she genuinely lives by. I agree with probably 99.99% of it.

But JIm also brings up a very salient point about the threat of disease. It most likely became the “foundation of the concept of monogamy” when societies realized that disease of a sexual nature is unique to sexual contact with more than one partner. But that is not the only reason we hold on to the monogamy concept today. As the author points out there are also legal reasons today that did not exist in the historical past.

And yet one only needs to review the acceptance of rampant sexual promiscuity in societies past. Look to Caligula and the festivals of Bacchus thousands of years ago. Move forward in time to the era of Lucrezia Borgia, the daughter of Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattanei, who herself was but one of the mistresses of Lucrezia’s father. This was a time when Kings and Queens and Popes, and even the common folks, did not place the “value” on monogamy that we do now. And considering the crisis that AIDS is today may lead an observer to conclude that 100% monogamy ever being achieved is a totally unrealistic expectation held and maintained by people with a head-in-the sand (lack of) view of the real world. Finally, look at the fact that many cultures outside of Western influence (except for Mormons) practice polygamy as a tenant of their religious beliefs. It is obvious the discovery of diseases that are spread by promiscuous behavior didn’t stop this behavior from happening.

And yet, the concept of monogamy is firmly rooted in many societies and cultures today despite the historical observations of behaviors of the past going back thousands of years. Does this mean that monogamy is evolutionary in origin as a natural part of the maturation process of our species? Or is it simply a relatively new concept that is merely practiced by certain societies? I certainly don’t know. I have to imagine and speculate that those of the past did not ‘feel’ the green-eyed monster of jealousy that the recent idea of monogamy has fostered. Certainly it would be easy too conclude that it didn’t rise to the level of emotional betrayal that is present in modern times.

Whether monogamy is right or wrong, or evolutionary or conceptual I will leave to those who graduated at a higher level than me.

Try that again. Interesting response, very informative, though I doubt jealousy is any more rampant now than forever before now. I would venture a guess that jealousy is one of those constants like greed and love.